squirrellypoo

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In his Mayfair Witches scene, Felix says “You live by their [human] rules, and you’ll go crazy.”

To me this sounds like he’s seen a vampire go crazy because they’re living by human rules.

Who has he seen isolated, in a shack, playing on a fake piano, delusional that they’re going on tour???

I don’t think Lestat told Felix to “cull the herd” or whatever. Felix has just learned to do the opposite of what Lestat is doing because he thinks that’s what turned Lestat crazy…

Possible!!

I did think about it, too, just Esta's comments.... then again, Esta's comments, right. Like... anyways.

It could be. That would leave the riddle of who he has been talking about re Darwin etc, but who knows, we might never find out. Or it might be the "brute" from Madagascar :))

Still, I like this a lot better than the insinuations, that's for sure :))

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Historical notes on Armand’s cultural background in the show

In the interest of not playing fast and loose with South Asian history and geopolitics, I have, to the best of my ability, compiled this guide on Armand as a character in the historical context of the regions and periods he is associated with. I am not an expert on these things, so anyone more educated than me is welcome to suggest edits. Probably the most complex topic here is language, and so that is the section in which I most likely made errors.

While I do have some formal academic training in this area, I must emphasize again that I am not an expert, nor am I native to any of the countries listed here, so I am functioning mostly on outsider knowledge. In the interest of making this accessible, most of this information can also be found on Wikipedia with a quick google search. This is not definitive or exhaustive, but it is meant to encourage people to be conscientious about not slipping into Orientalist thought or discourse when discussing the character (or ever, obviously). Also please remember not to conflate the character and the actor. This may also serve as a tool for fic writers.

Content warning: discussion of slavery/slave trade

(Main content below the cut)

Period and Region

India

Armand tells Daniel in s1e7 that he is 514 in 2022, meaning he was either born or made around the year 1508. He tells both Louis and Daniel that he is from Delhi, or was at least in Delhi when he was abducted. Delhi is a city in Northwestern India that sits on the border between the states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. (There is an Old Delhi and a New Delhi. These two cities abut and overlap one another. Armand refers to Old Delhi.) Therefore, Armand would have been living in Delhi during the latter years of the Delhi Sultanate, which was an empire of Islamic dynasties that ruled Northwestern India from the late 12th century until the Mughal conquest in 1526. (The Delhi Sultanate also pushed expansion into the south and the east during various periods throughout its reign. Its main opponents were other Muslim kingdoms along with Hindu kingdoms, especially in the south.)

Italy

Armand would have been living in the Republic of Venice during the height of the Venetian Renaissance. Like the Delhi Sultanate, the Republic of Venice was also in its later years during this time, but, although the Republic did face economic and political unrest during this period, they remained the richest city-state in Italy. Marius was a Venetian painter, a contemporary of Tintoretto, according to Armand in season 1. Tintoretto lived from 1518 to 1594. Whether the painting Daniel is examining in the episode was painted before or after Armand’s arrival in Venice is unclear, but we can assume that he was living in Venice as Amadeo in the early decades of the 16th century. The Republic entered its full fledged decline in the 18th century, by which time Armand would have been in Paris.

Language

In India

Armand most likely spoke an early version of Hindustani (likely Hindavi) while living in Delhi, although, according to the books, Armand has mostly forgotten his native language by the time Marius buys him. Hindustani first developed under the Delhi Sultanate, and is still spoken today. Its two main branches today are Hindi and Urdu. (Many other languages are also spoken in India today, including English, Punjabi, Tamil, Bengali, and many more. Sadly, not all of these languages enjoy legal status.)

Armand may have also spoken a dialect of Western Hindi, which was commonly spoken in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, and is an ancestor of Hindustani.

Hindavi and Persian were the official languages of the sultanate.

These two are the most likely due to his region, period, and his Sanskrit name, Arun. Sanskrit is an Old Indo-Aryan language from which many later Indo-Aryan languages are derived. (Sanskrit names are still common in South Asia.)

In Italy and France

However, as mentioned previously, Armand forgets his native language early in life. Therefore, it is unclear whether he counts it among the languages he speaks when he tells Daniel that French was his fifth language.

While in Venice in the books, Armand is trained in classical Latin and Greek, and often communicates in Greek, which was also the canonical language of Eastern Orthodox which he practiced in the books before his abduction. Italian and Venetian were also spoken in Venice at the time, so it is likely that Armand picked up both of those while living there. Even if he only picked up Venetian, he would have learned Italian while living with the Children of Darkness in Rome. Venetian, Italian, and Latin were the official languages of the Republic of Venice.

He tells Daniel that he learned both French and English while living in Paris (making English his sixth language).

Religion

In Dehli

The Sanskrit name Arun also suggests that Armand was from a Hindu family living in Delhi. While having a Sanskrit name does not necessarily preclude his being Muslim, it is just more likely that he was Hindu. The majority religion in Delhi during the sultanate was Hinduism, while Islam was practiced mainly by the elite, although conversion was common. The state religion of the sultanate was Sunni Islam. Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism were also practiced in the sultanate.

Sanskrit is the canonical language of both Hinduism and Buddhism, but Buddhism was facing persecution during this period, and therefore becoming increasingly rarer in the north.

We can assume that Armand was devoted most likely to Hinduism, or possibly one of the others listed, as Armand is deeply religious in the books.

In Dubai, Venice, and Paris

We do see Armand praying according to Islamic practice in season 1. Even more confusingly, Daniel points out that the phrase “asr namozi” is not Arabic, but perhaps Kazakh. “Asr namozi” is actually an Uzbek phrase referring to the asr prayer, or “afternoon prayer,” in Islam. Why Armand would be speaking Uzbek is lost on me, as nothing else in his history necessarily suggests ties to the region. It could be part of his Rashid disguise to somehow misdirect Daniel. Whatever the case, as a highly intelligent five hundred year old vampire, I’m sure Armand could learn any language he wanted.

While Armand may not have practiced Islam during his life in Delhi, it is entirely possible he later converted. If Armand was Hindu, it would also make sense that he lapsed out of practice in Venice, as, in the books, Armand loses almost all ties to his native culture while in Venice (his name, his language, his religion, etc.) at least partially due to Marius’s influence. Marius’s beliefs are closely aligned with western humanism, and so he discourages Armand from complete devotion to religion. The state religion of the Republic was Roman Catholicism, but Eastern Orthodox, Protestantism, and Judaism were also practiced. There was also a small Muslim population, mainly Ottoman merchants.

The “Children of Darkness,” the vampire cult which kidnaps Armand in Venice and which he later leads in Paris, follows Catholic teachings. In the book and in the show, the cult’s obsession with Satan is explicitly Catholic. Satan is also an adversarial figure in Islam (called “Iblis” or “Shaitan”), so if Armand was a practitioner of Islam before, he likely would have been able to syncretize those beliefs and practices with those of the Children or Darkness. However, by the time Lestat finds Armand, he has lost faith (if he ever had it) in the teachings of the Children of Darkness. The last is true of both the show and the novels.

In the novels, Armand alternates between periods of religious fanaticism and zealotry and total atheism, so it would make sense that, along these oscillations, he would also move between different religions, trying to find the right one. In the books, after Armand meets Lestat, he enters a period of atheism that lasts well into the twentieth century. If the show is following this sequence, then it is likely that Armand’s praying in front of Daniel is just part of his disguise. However, the show clearly is not following the novels’ timeline to a T, so it is also entirely possible Armand is genuinely praying in this scene.

Slave Trade

(Disclaimer: Slavery is, unfortunately, ubiquitous across cultures and time periods. While slavery is deplorable in any context, the intent of this post is not to make moral judgements about any one culture. It is simply to discuss the possible historical context of a fictional character. We ought to condemn slavery wherever we see it, but we ought not to view it as pathological to one culture or another. Slavery is still practiced in various forms today (wage slavery, convict leasing, illegal human trafficking, etc.) Slavery serves a capitalist market, but it can create revenue in other systems as well.)

Slave trade was a major economic practice under the Delhi Sultanate, with the enslaved most commonly being of Turkic or Hindu origin.

(From the Wikipedia page on “Slavery in India.”)

Enslavement of Muslims was far less common under the Delhi Sultanate (although many enslaved people converted to Islam), and so this, again, suggests Armand was most likely a Hindu.

Slave trade was highly regulated under the sultanate, and private slave trade was essentially banned. The exporting of enslaved people on the international market was an important source of revenue for the sultanate, especially during military campaigns. (Slavery continued in the Mughal period, but in somewhat different contexts.)

Therefore, Armand was likely a young Hindu who was abducted in Delhi with sanction from the state and sent overseas to be sold on the international market, landing him in Venice.

However, it is also possible that Armand was abducted by Venetians, as the Republic often sent merchant ships to foreign countries, including India, during this period. The Republic also had many trade outposts and territories in various central and west Asian cities. I am unsure whether this type of trade would have been considered legal or permissible under the sultanate.

In the books, Armand is abducted by the Ottomans and taken to Constantinople/Istanbul to be sold. This is a less likely possibility for the show, given the shift in region.

//

If you’ve stayed with me this long, thanks for reading. All bolded terms have corresponding Wikipedia articles. This post may be edited according to new information or outside corrections.

Let me know if I should do one of these for Lestat as well. I could also try one for Louis but my knowledge of American history leaves something to be desired.

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Scientific clues for detecting a ✨️liar✨️

~Featuring Lestat, Armand & Louis~

-saying yes but shaking their head no

-sounding like they are repeating a rehearsed script

-muscle tension, restlessness, and fidgeting

-odd eye movements, such as looking down or sideways

-looking away briefly

-cocking the head to the side

-not blinking

-adding excessive detail to convince themselves or others of what they are saying

-not making eye contact

-blinking too much

-refusing to break a gaze

-stiff posture

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I’ve finished the first test of my Lestat hat. Think the logo is too big and maybe trying to reduce it by half

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Why are their legs crossed the same way?? 😵‍💫👯‍♂️

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A Vampire Lestat bobble hat

I'm officially addicted to making my own goddamned Vampire Lestat merch. First it was putting the logo onto shirts, then knitting it into socks, and now I've gone and knitted myself a bobble hat with the S3 logo too.

I used my KB "Adjustable Multi-Knit Loom" and Bessie May chunky yarn in "Blueberry" and "Nero" (100% merino), using the full two 50g balls of the purple and a portion of the black ball. I used the same VL stitch pattern from the socks, which I made using the logo screenshot and an online pixel generator to make a 32x30 pattern to follow. (I'm happy to send this to others if you DM me!)

Like with the socks, I used three strands of black during the logo colourwork to minimise any long floats inside, and this worked well again.

I've got an enormous head, and my last few hats usually are a bit too long, but then I went and overcompensated in the other direction for this one so it's a tad too short. I don't have any balloons or balls to block it on, so I'm just stretching it over my head as I wear it.

Making a big pompom for the top really adds to it I think!

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Sam freeze-frame from Autumn’s bloopers video…

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Drag Queens Trixie Mattel & Katya React to Interview with the Vampire (Season 1) [x]

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These are another pair of loom knitted socks using the KB Sock Loom (fine gauge) set at 52 pegs, and using the “Escher Bats” colourwork pattern from the AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary book.

I still had some @mothyandthesquid merino sock yarn in “Ruby” & “Midnight Black” leftover from my blood drip socks earlier in the year so it was a no brainer to just use that! I love the gentle variegation in the red, and both are just so soft to knit and wear.

I wasn’t quite sure about the colourwork though after the first sock, as I felt the red bats disappeared a bit. But I carried on with the second, hoping they’d look better after blocking and thankfully I was right!

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If you’re looking for a good horror Christmas movie this year and you don’t want to watch Black Christmas or Silent Night Deadly Night for the ten thousandth time, I totally recommend Rare Exports. It’s Finnish, so you need to watch with subtitles, but it’s a great movie, it makes me jump every time I watch it and it’s got some humor, which I think more horror movies need!

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New chapter 3 posted ♥️

Title: i wanna be yours

Pairing: Loustat

Chapter summary: jealousy • enamored • trigger warnings

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Idk if uve discussed this before, im new haha but I really enjoy your readings of the show and I’m curious, would u call louis a femme? Idk i think it’s a widely accepted canon in the fandom and i constantly see it spread all over twitter with no argument whatsoever and im over here like i.. i dont see it?? Idk!

Hey! Welcome, anon! And thank you for your kind words! You’re very sweet!

I think I’ve probably discussed it in fragments before, but not outright said it, but no, I wouldn’t call Louis a femme. It’s certainly a largely accepted fanon in a vocal part of the fandom, particularly on Twitter and ao3, and yeah - - I mean. I’m really glad people are having fun with it! I do also sometimes feel they’re watching a different show to me though, because it’s honestly not something I see at all. I don’t know if their arguments are necessarily organized in the one place (although I could be very wrong in terms of that!) but I might use this as an opportunity to collate my thoughts and the previous posts I’ve made addressing the arguments around this particular topic. SO! Okay! Let’s break it down and dive in:

Louis is femme because he’s a Gothic Heroine

I just don’t agree with this argument, I’m sorry. I’m not going to get into the weeds of this one, just because I feel like I’ve done so already, but I don’t personally read Louis as a gothic heroine at all. In fact, I see him as a very archetypical Byronic Hero, which I talked about in this post, and in others in my Byronic Hero tag.

Louis is femme because he is a Battered Housewife / relying on a Sugar Daddy

This point often gets tied up into the gothic heroine one, and it’s one that always kind of surprises me a little bit. Even putting aside the fact that it’s an ugly, misogynistic trope in general, Louis’ relationship to being a quote-unquote ‘housewife’ is one that – to me – is symbolic of his feelings of emasculation in the Rue Royale household not as a result of Lestat alone, but as a result of the white power structures in New Orleans that would disempower and disenfranchise him. He doesn’t like it, it doesn’t make him ‘femme’, in fact, my interpretation is the opposite – it emasculates him as a Black Man, and he feels that in every part of his life to the point that both his daughter and sister weaponize it against him, and I personally think it’s a factor in his periodic impotence in his marriage. Respectively, Claudia calls him the housewife, and Grace calls Lestat his white daddy – these aren’t compliments, these are callous insults from both of them designed to bruise his pride and force him into action. The fact that neither of them work to move him the way they want doesn’t mean Louis identifies with them, rather it means he’s – at the time – committed to Lestat for better and worse, but their words compound in a way that fuels his resentment of Lestat as both an adulterous husband and a symbol of everything wrong with his life.

Further to that – and I say it in the Byronic Hero/Gothic Heroine post that I link to above  – but a vital part of power dynamic tropes in gothic literature is that women lose power through marriage, they don’t gain it, and Louis does, in fact, gain it. Lestat’s a ticket to social advancement for Louis because as much as Louis (rightfully! It’s extremely racist!) hates being forced into a servitude role publicly at the theatre or in lease agreements, it’s Lestat’s whiteness that allows Louis into more conversations politically, and eventually allows him to buy the Fair Play Saloon and turn it into The Azaelia. It’s a limited power, of course, as a result of his race and the era, but the show actually explicitly lays out certain things for us like the fact that Louis pays Lestat back in full, and pointedly, that Louis never felt that he had to pay Lestat back at all:

The last line of which is Louis greeting Lestat not as a sugar baby or a housewife walking out to his sugar daddy or husband, but as a business man to his husband.

In fact, the interesting exchange of power in that sequence actually leans to the reverse as Lestat ends up playing host to a new client while Louis lords over an empire.

(You can't see it exactly in these subtitles, but it's Louis who says 'you about five years late', and Lestat honeytrapping with taking the man away).

It's a dynamic that repeats with the musician who tries to leave that Lestat coerces into staying - Louis' king of the castle, and Lestat, the show implies, I feel, plays the placating partner smooting over the edges.

But isn’t Lestat a symbol of patriarchal power in the Rue Royale Household?

I’ve had a couple of asks about this and have a long reply in my drafts that I’ll try and post this weekend, but yes and no? I think in Rue Royale, Lestat’s definitely a symbol of patriarchal power to Claudia, and I think Louis sometimes feels him that way too, but I don’t think it’s actually true for Louis in the way that it is for Claudia. Gender isn’t what divides Louis and Lestat, it’s race, and every time Louis has the chance to exert patriarchal power against anyone outside that house or inside it, he uses it – from coercing Lestat into Claudia's rebirth to physically assaulting Claudia over Lestat’s murder, to even trying to influence her diet and guilting her into staying, to throwing Lestat out of his own house and then fucking him in his lover’s bed (which, obviously, are after Lestat's singular act of violence), to being literally a pimp, strongarming his sister and his mother, to giving less than 0 fucks about Lily’s murder and the attempted anal-rape of Bricktop - - just.

Yeah. There are two patriarchs in the Rue Royale household, and both their names begin with L.

Eldest daughter syndrome

Sometimes men are also eldest siblings who feel the burden of responsibility?

Even beyond that though, I think Louis’ response to Grace is particularly paternalistic, a pattern he’d repeat with Claudia, which I talk about here. I do think Louis has a lot of responsibility and weight on his shoulders as an eldest child, absolutely, and I actually think there’s a lot to talk about in terms of his complex position as brother-father to Paul and Grace in s1 (and I empathise with him intensely in this regard as someone who’s been a sibling’s guardian), but like. That’s not a feminine trait, nor is it one that makes him an eldest daughter. I’m not one, and he’s not one either. Sibling dynamics aren’t cut and paste.

But Louis buys and reads Madame Bovary and obviously relates to Emma

I mean, he doesn’t buy it – the show literally, explicitly makes the point of telling us that it’s Lestat’s copy of the book that he’s reading, which honestly makes sense to me. I talked about it here (where I include the caps of it being Lestat's book too), but Emma as a character cheats because she finds monogamy boring, provincial life even more so and dislikes her daughter, while married to a successful man in a regional town. Louis’ not the Emma in that equation, Lestat is, given he's fucking Antoinette – allegedly because he wants variety – escaped the Auvergne in Paris, and can’t cope with parenthood and/or Claudia.

Interestingly too, Louis’ focus in that scene is on the 'denseness' of the prose and 'the absence of metaphor' not the content, as he ignores Lestat having a meltdown directly opposite him. My interpretation of that scene is that the writing is pointing out exactly how disconnected they are from each other, and that Louis can read a story that parallels a lot of Lestat’s experience, and fail to relate it to, or empathise with Lestat at all, even as Lestat indulges Louis’ depression and hoarding, which ! I love Louis, but Lestat does in that sequence (not that that justifies anything that Lestat does, of course).  

Isn’t Louis compared to Juliet and Mélisande?

Mmm, yes and no? Armand does put him in the Juliet role, which Louis riffs with Dreamstat about, but I tend to interpret that more to be about the involvement of the balcony than I do about their roles as Romeo and Juliet – because, y’know. Not everything’s actually about gender, particularly with same sex couples of that era who had limited reference points generally, and certainly limited mainstream ones.  

And Melisande - - not at all, actually? I do have to say that I’m a little bit baffled by this particular argument given we have the lyrics to Come to Me and Lestat puts himself in the feminine role of Mélisande (and I actually do think you can mount the argument that he's done that because he’s intending for Antoinette to sing it, which I thought for a long time before hearing Long Face tbh, and now I actually do think it’s deliberately playing into Louis’ sense of masculinity), and he does cast Louis in the masculine role of Pelléas. The chorus literally goes:

Ruin each other Like star-crossed lovers Your Pelléas, my Mélisande Oh, come to me Come to me

So, yeah. Again, that argument just doesn't quite land for me.

Wasn’t he jealous of Grace’s pregnancy though?

Was he? That wasn’t my interpretation, but I’d actually genuinely be interested to hear a case for it, because I feel that’s kind of tasty on a narrative level, haha. My interpretation of that entire sequence though kind of feeds back into that eldest sibling thing again where he a) resented Grace building something of her own before he could, and b) was terrified of the idea that her having her own family would mean that she’d pull way from him which she, of course, did.

I tend to see Louis’ desire to have Claudia as a fairly impulsive one, and I actually see (in the show’verse) his desire to have Lestat be the one to turn her as a part of him further interlocking him and Lestat together, particularly after he's effectively just broken up with Lestat. It's messy! But yeah, I mean, I think 2.07 laid out pretty cleanly that Louis' choice to turn Claudia was inherently a selfish one, and I personally don't see it as one borne out of jealousy so much as needing an anchor. 

Anne bases Louis on herself

She also bases Lestat on herself and/or everything she wants to be, and also washes her hands of Louis as a character for books at a time, and like - - I’m sorry, this is not the tone I usually take, but like - - lowkey, who cares? Everyone in this fandom loves death of the author until Anne says one thing they can use to justify their headcanons, and I just don’t really get it. Why are you trying to interpret a vampire novel as a memoir? Obviously it’s not factual? Anne’s not a man, she’s not drinking blood, she’s not romantically entangled with her dead daughter, like I do understand that it can feel noodly sometimes with authors and characters, but as someone who works with a lot of writers, I can promise you they’re dipping in and out of characters like crazy, haha.

It doesn’t mean a character’s them, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re interacting with Anne when you're interacting with Louis, which I suspect a lot of people don’t want anyway? I don't know, personally I view this one as a bit of a non-starter.

Louis’ pretty though

Yeah, he is! He’s your Helen of Troy! He’s beautiful! He’d look amazing in tights and heels! That doesn’t mean he’s canonically femme though.

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IWTV S2 Floorplans

Christmas has come early for floorplan enjoyers! 🥳

Exqueeze me... the WHAT table?

Omg, they built the SF rooftop onto the side of the Paris street in Barandov?? That's what the "walkable rooftop" was for??

All floorplans and a bunch of high quality production stills from this pdf. And if you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my S1 Rue Royale townhouse floorplan post...

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I asked my friend to bring me a tacky souvenir from NOLA and she delivered.

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good luck, babe! - an ode to Dale Jennings repressed sexuality, featuring Helen Norville as 'a hundred boys in bars'

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it's true and you should say it.

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30 years ago today I saw “Interview with the Vampire” at a mall movie theater somewhere in rural Pennsylvania and it forever altered the course of my life.

Not to be overly dramatic, but seeing the film made me seek out the books, and as I devoured all four (at the time!), it completely opened up my world view from my sheltered rural upbringing. It made me strive to escape, and believe I was destined for something greater. That I could endure and do better.

It was probably inevitable that these characters would become my lifelong favourites - take a girl with Transylvanian heritage, give her a blood disorder, get her reading Dracula in elementary school and exposed to toxic gothic romance as a preteen (Phantom of the Opera!) and it’s no wonder Louis and Lestat became permanently etched into my psyche.

You can draw a straight line between my love for the film and moving abroad at the first opportunity. Love of the film, books, and now tv series has brought me to some of my closest lifetime friends - in 1995, in 2002, and again in 2022. Friends I made 30 years ago, spending late nights discussing every detail, are still friends today.

I took this opportunity to dig through old photos today to find ones where I was re-enacting vampire scenes with friends, or having the poster on my wall at uni, or dressing up as a vampire at Halloween. Sadly I couldn’t find photos from my original 1995 Halloween vampire costume, or giving my speech on vampires in high school English class, or of me wearing my original film teeshirt, so you’ll have to imagine those.

I’ll never be someone that moves from fandom to fandom - for me, this has always been The Fandom, even when Anne Rice herself made it really hard to be an Anne Rice fan in the early 2000s.

I can only hope to enjoy 30 more years of this brainrot in my future. 🥂